Ashley = The Merchant
I watched a friend play thru most of the game last weekend, looks damn good. However, we kept wondering how that merchant guy always seemed to get ahead of Leon, completely unscathed. We were like, "Hey dood, show me those trade routes so I can skip all these bad guys."
Then it occurred to me: you rarely see Ashley and the merchant in the same place at the same time. You do the math.
Also, we were worried that one of these times, the merchant was going to open his coat and be naked underneath, wanting to show us a rash or an altar boy or something. If he'd only bathe once in a while, and, ya know, not hang out with a bunch of crazy cultists in central Spain, maybe he'd have more of a social life. He did seem to have a good thing going, apparently selling all his ammo to the cult members and all the guns to Leon, letting them duke it out and keep selling to the survivor.
However, RE4 could do wonders for Spain's tourism. I can see morons getting off the plane, saying, "Show me where you keep the crazy people and the zombies," like how people are with the concentration camps in Germany. "They're here, but we're not proud of them."